WaPo: "But the president’s advantage is undeniable. State media have delivered fawning campaign coverage while the Chavez administration has doled out refrigerators, new apartments and other gifts to prospective voters."

Obama needs to step up his game. Cell phones just don't cut it anymore. Is our President going to be beaten out by some Venezuelan dude?

Come on now, you know that it doesn't matter what the votes are, it matters who counts them..

Hugo will be the winner, so by the end of this term it will be, what 20 years in power ? Why is it always the hardest to get rid of power hunger leftist.... speaking of Obama after finding out he knocked 181miillion in September , Romney winning is now impossible , that's buying election money.

Funny thing is, Obama's still fundraising like it's nobodies busniess, it's as if there is never enough money , exactly like how Obama has treated the American tax payer the last 4 years.

JFK, the golden boy of recent American presidential politics, likely won his election due to vote fraud (in Illinois & Texas).

This isn't conspiracy theory, but the conclusion of research by respectable historians (e.g. Robert Caro).

Totally unlike Bush/ Gore 2000. Not only in the fact that Nixon, unlike Gore, conceded; but the fact that no respectable historian thinks the 2000 election was "stolen".

So yeah, Venezuela under Chavez is a banana republic. But I don't feel too complacent or smug about our own electoral system. A history that shows Democrats in particular (e.g Kennedy) getting away with stealing elections.

I'm very concerned about our own 2012 election (IMO the Obama machine is at least as corrupt as Kennedy's Daley/ Giancana/ etc. one), though I have some residual faith/hope in our system (compared to others). But it has to be a large enough margin of victory.

Which is why, I don't care what state you're in, if you're anti-Obama, you've got to turn out (and please vote for Romney, not Gary Johnson).

My comments here so far have been more about American politics than Venezuela itself.

My bad (I don't mean that ironically).

I feel awful for the people of Venezuela, who have my deep condolences.

Chavez is one of the most despicable heads of state in the world today, probably the worst in the Americas (except for Castro). An awful man, who's ruined every true value of democracy in his country (yet spouts the kind of rhetoric that seduces leftist fools, especially American celebrities).

I don't wish death on any human being (not even Chavez). But unfortunately, it seems like he will have to die from cancer before Venezuelans can emerge from the nightmare of this tyrant's administration.

A majority of Venezuelans, once again, elect to exchange their liberty for submission with benefits. The communists, and other left-wing ideologues, derive their power from exploitation of opportunists, the vulnerable without integrity, and individuals with character deficiencies. They voluntarily defer their dignity to individuals who presume to act as mortal gods. There are better compromises, which do not demand selling yourself wholesale.